grin Pemberley-- we've discussed that very thing at our house. As far as we're concerned, Lear is no more heroic than... well, than Romeo is. Or Ophelia.

Julius Caesar-- now he's heroic. Macbeth, or Othello.... not so much. Hamlet? Perhaps.

(And yeah, we've been having this kind of conversation at our house since DD was pretty young, too... ) One of our favorite portrayals in all of Shakespeare's canon is of Achilles in Troilus and Cressida, fwiw-- because it is such an jarring and peculiar reading of "heroic." It's very human.

Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.